Daddy's Little Girl
By Hazelmist
A/N: This chapter picks up immediately following the last. Oh and try not to hate me too much.
Chapter 4: A Night They'll Never Forget
They spend the day together in the park; just her, Booth, their daughter and Parker. It's the best day they've ever had. The weather is perfect and the sun is shining and in the sprawling park on the edge of the city everything is beautiful. It could have been pouring and they probably still would've told you it was glorious. It's like one sweet dream that stretches the boundaries of what should be realistically possible and leaves you with a memory of happiness long after it's over. Booth and Bones had never dared to hope to ever be that happy, but by the end of the day their faces hurt from smiling and their sides hurt from laughing. They can't stop touching each other and the two children because it's almost too good to be true. For one day they don't think about Pelant, or their regrets, or the wrongs, or the mistakes, or the pain, or the people they left behind. For one day it's just Seeley Booth, Temperance Brennan, Christine, and Parker, and it's perfect.
Until the sun starts to go down and it ends.
All it takes is an innocent phone call from Rebecca just to check up on her son and suddenly their dreamscape in the park isn't so dreamy. Parker wants to know if they're coming for dinner and Temperance's back stiffens as she scoops up her daughter and regretfully shakes her head.
"Perhaps another time," she offers, remembering her manners, but already she's holding her daughter tighter and Booth's smile is a little tighter as well. He doesn't like her reply. Temperance sees this and touches his arm.
"It's not that I don't like Rebecca, not that I don't want to have dinner with you and Parker and Rebecca, I just…" She stops herself, struggling to put everything into words in a way that Booth will understand. It turns out that she doesn't have to.
He bends down and kisses first Christine's and then her forehead.
"I know it's a lot and I know it's going to take some time. We'll take it slow, I promise," he whispers, smoothing back her hair and meeting her gaze steadily. Temperance worries what might happen if she allowed herself to get lost in that gaze once more. She wonders how she went without it for so long.
Her phone rings and they both jump. She pulls it out of her purse. It's Max, finally. Max reassures her that he's fine, and his cellphone died again, and that he'll be at the apartment waiting for them. Temperance looks at Booth and his face falls as she confirms she'll be there soon with Christine and hangs up.
"I have to go," she tells them. She says goodbye to first Parker and then Booth, relishing the way he takes Christine from her and spins her around until she giggles. He would've been the perfect father for Christine. No, she reminds herself, he is the perfect father. And yet she snatches Christine back as quickly as she can.
He helps her readjust her bag, smoothing down the strap and letting his fingers linger there.
"I'll see you soon," he says softly, forcing her to meet his gaze. It's like lightning. Her heart starts up all over again.
"Yeah," Temperance finds herself promising. She steps out of his reach and practically drags Christine home at a run.
"Mommy, I wanted to stay!" Christine wails as they exit the park.
"I know sweetheart, so did I," Temperance agrees, her voice breaking. The sight of her mother's tears shocks Christine into submission, but before she can ask her about it, Temperance picks her up and cradles her like she used to when she was smaller. She carries her all the way home, fighting the urge to turn around and run back to Booth the entire time.
Booth must know that because even though she blatantly refused to allow him to walk her home or give him anything more than a vague agreement that she'd see him soon, she finds a business card in her pocket from a nearby hotel with a room number and cell phone number scrawled on the back in a handwriting she would recognize as well as her own.
"You're awfully quiet," Max observes as she shoves Booth's card in her purse. "Did something happen today?"
"No," Temperance lies and she tries to push thoughts of Booth to the back of her mind like she buried the card in her purse.
"Sweetheart, are you sure you're alright?" Max asks, concerned.
"Fine," Temperance insists.
But she mulls it over a long time after she's put her daughter to bed before she picks up the card and the phone. All it takes is his voice, saying her name into the silence when she doesn't say a word in response to his salutation, and she's unraveling. She hangs up on him, gets dressed again, and nervously grabs the keys.
She tells Max she doesn't know when she'll be back but she has to take care of something. It might be hours. It might be a day or two. Tells him to call. He doesn't ask where she's going or why, just kisses her cheek and tells her to be careful. They trust and understand each other more than anyone else now. Ironic, considering what he put her through as a kid, but now that she's his daughter again, a fugitive, and a parent herself, she understands.
She shuts the door behind her, gets in the car, and drives and drives and drives. She drives by his hotel three times before she finally realizes that as irrational as it is she will go insane if she doesn't at least see him one more time.
The knock on the door wakes him up hours after he stopped daring to hope. He instinctively reaches for the gun on the bedside table before coming fully awake in the musty hotel room. Sitting up, he realizes that it's four forty-seven A.M. and it's unlikely that it's housekeeping. He brings the gun with him to the door and makes sure to check the peep hole before he opens it. There's no one there but he steps out anyway, hoping that there's the smallest chance that maybe, just maybe it wasn't just his imagination and that she-
"Bones!"
She was ready to leave, prepared to write this whole thing up as a huge mistake, but he catches her before she gets back to the elevator. He's frustrated, disheveled, and in a state of undress that she's not quite prepared for even though it's nearly five in the morning.
"You weren't planning on leaving again, were you?" his voice is rough with sleep and deeper with the lust that darkens his eyes as he takes her in.
All it takes is that one look and she's meeting him in the middle of the hallway in a smoldering kiss. It's been too long, far too long. In fact, as he pushes her up against the door of some poor unsuspecting neighbor, she realizes that since she lost her virginity at 22 she's never gone this long without sex. She should've known what just looking at him or any man in a half undressed state would do to her but at the moment she's too caught up to care.
She doesn't know how they manage to make it back to his room without anyone on the floor calling in a complaint. They barely make it to the bed.
There's nothing gentle or sweet about their first reunion in five years. It's all about lust and need and the overflow of pent up frustration and anger.
She knows he's angry now. He's too rough with her, but she keeps her mouth shut as he manhandles her, knowing that he needs this just as much as she does. She'll have bruises in the morning from where his hands dug in to his hips and from where he slammed her into the doors and the walls on their lengthy trek to the hotel bed.
In this moment, as they come together, nothing else matters but the fact that they've come together again at last.
She cries the second time they make love because he's already apologizing and making up for each and every bruise. He tells her he loves her over and over again. She almost wishes he'd be angry again and that they could go back to the primal, raw need that marked their first sexual encounter in five years because in a way it was easier. And though she was bruised and banged up she didn't have to feel the first time, not like this. This time she feels everything. She hates him for it because she falls in love with him all over again and it hurts. It hurts so much that she cries.
"I didn't think you'd come," he tells her, tracing her face for the hundredth time. It's almost noon, but with the exception of trips to the bathroom, they haven't left the bed at all.
"I had to," she whispers back, committing every inch of his face to memory.
"I'm glad you did." He grins, pulling her in for another kiss.
"Me too," she lies, because she's missed him so much and she's so happy and that's the problem isn't it? It's only going to be harder when she has to leave him. She blocks out the rational part of her brain and rolls on top of him. It doesn't take long for him to drive her doubts entirely away.
"Come home with me," he murmurs into her hair. He's half asleep even though it's only four forty seven P.M. and the sun is only halfway through its lazy descent outside their window. She closes her eyes against the glare that escapes through a crack in the cheap shade and buries her face into his chest.
"You can't run forever," he reminds her, nuzzling her neck until she's forced to look up into his sleepy but serious gaze. "Please Bones, let me take you home."
She's not lying when she meets his eye and says, "I want you to."
Hours later she's on the edge of the bed in his shirt, watching him sleep. She watches the rise and fall of his chest, and later, counts the beats of his heart when she finally gives in to the urge to press her ear against that thin layer of skin that separates that vital organ with such mythical romantic powers from her.
"I missed you," she whispers, turning to press a kiss right over his heart. "I think she misses you too, but she's not old enough to understand." Her voice breaks, because her daughter was too young to know how much her father loved her in those short months they had together.
His hand lifts to cup the back of her head, holding her against his bare chest. She thought he was sleeping but now his breathing quickens and his voice joins her in the shadows.
"I'll have plenty of time to make up for that," he reassures her, stroking her hair.
She doesn't answer and maybe that's when he starts to wonder if they're still on the same page.
"You want to come home, don't you?" he asks her again.
"Yes," she says because it's the truth. More than anything in the world, she wants to take her daughter and go back with him to her old life. "Yes," she tells him again. And when he kisses her and they make love again, every kiss, every touch, and every whisper of his name is accompanied by that wish that this could last forever and that the past five years could be erased.
But the past can't be erased. It catches up with her around midnight while they're both sleeping contentedly in each other's arms blissfully unaware of the world that keeps turning around them. Her phone rings again and again and again, but the cell phone which fell somewhere underneath the bed in their last passionate tussle gets muffled beneath a pile of discarded clothing.
His phone is what wakes them. Booth doesn't even bother to check it. He quickly silences it and tosses it over the side of the bed. He has her to himself for the first time in almost five years and he plans on keeping it that way at least for a little longer. Work can wait.
"I hope you know that now that I've got you again, I'm not letting you go. I've missed you too much," he tells her, kissing her possessively.
They don't talk about why she left or what's waiting for her when she gets back at least not until the wee hours of the morning when reality starts to set in.
"I can keep you safe," he reassures her. "I have some friends working the case on the side, helping Angela and I out with the research and the tracking. We think we've got something that could turn your case around but you'll have to go to trial, there's no way around it."
He doesn't mention the fact that she's a fugitive now and that she'll have to spend time in jail just for impeding a federal murder investigation. All he knows is that she has to come home. He can't stand not knowing where she is, not knowing if she's dead or alive, not knowing if their daughter is safe and well. He needs her, he needs them both with him back where they belong. They're a family and families are supposed to stay together.
"I should've gone with you," he laments, peppering her shoulders with kisses.
"No." She shakes her head. "I couldn't do that to you. If anything were to happen I wouldn't want Christine to lose both parents."
"Bones, we always worked better together," he reminds her.
"Yes, we did," she agrees, kissing him because it's not just their working relationship that she's acknowledging. But that's where all her problems stem from. She loves them too much to give them both up so she chose one to selfishly keep to herself. Perhaps it was because her own mother abandoned her, perhaps it was because she had only recently become a mother for the first time and wasn't quite ready to separate from her still nursing baby. She's an anthropologist, she knows hundreds of scientific theories that could explain her maternal instincts, but she also knows what she feels and what's in her heart and he taught her that.
His phone rings again and she wonders what could possibly demand his attention at 4:47 A.M. but she encourages him to get it so she can seize the opportunity to check in with Max and her daughter who she suddenly misses more than ever.
When she sees the multiple missed calls she knows something's wrong. She scoops up her phone and her discarded dress and heads to the bathroom. Four of them are from Max and he only leaves two voice mails. In the first one he tells her to call him immediately, but in the next one he's even more agitated but he tells her everything's fine, not to call, not to wake Christine. It's laced with words that have all kinds of double meanings; a code he ingrained in her as soon as she made the decision to take her child and run. Her heart starts to pound in her chest as she tries to dress as quickly and calmly as possible because there's another missed call and another voicemail and it's not from Max.
Pelant's found them.
She has to run.
But when she walks out of that bathroom, she realizes that this time it's not just about Max and her daughter. Booth sits on the edge of the bed with the phone pressed to his ear and the sheets bundled around his waist. The muscles in his back ripple as he turns to look back at her and his face changes so quickly to concern that she really wishes that they were working together on this one. She would feel so much better if it was him by her side. He's the only man strong and brave enough to carry this weight. She considers him even as he turns her back on her to hastily wrap up his phone call. She knows, even as she reaches for the bedside table and opens the drawer, that he could and would take care of them both if she would just trust him. And she does trust him, she thinks even as her hand closes around the desired object he left in the drawer, she knows he would go to the ends of the earth for her and their daughter, and that's the problem. He's too reliable, too predictable, too honest and too willing to sacrifice himself entirely when he might be their only hope. She loves him and she can't bear to lose him, and all of this is so irrational to him but it makes perfect sense to her. This she thinks, as she hides the object in her hand behind her back, is the only rational option.
"You're leaving," he observes, putting the phone down slowly. He's already analyzing the situation trying to figure out how to make her stay; but this isn't another case, this is her life, and his life, and their daughter's life that's on the line, and she has been trained just a little too well in the skill of leaving.
"Yes."
"You're coming back, right?" But he already knows from the look in her eyes what she's going to tell him.
"I'm leaving, Booth." She's always hated goodbyes but there's no avoiding this one. She drinks in the sight of her partner, her best friend, the father of her child, the one she loves more than anyone else, for what has to be the last time.
"Bones, you can't just walk out on me again and disappear for another five or ten or fifteen years– this- this isn't right. I love you," he pleads with her, his eyes welling up. He starts to stand and she backs up so quickly in to the wall that he sits back down. His face takes on a calculated look as if he knows already the hand she's got hidden. But it turns out he's got a hand of his own to play.
"I love you, Bones, but I love Christine too, and I'm – " he swallows, steeling himself and forms the words that she dreads but knows she has to wait to hear. "Bones, I'm tired of not seeing my daughter. I want to be her father and I want her to know that I'm her father. I want to see her grow up, Bones, and if you walk out that that door than I'm not sure I will be able to do that."
His words almost break down her resolve because she knows he's right. It's her biggest fear that her daughter won't grow up and her biggest regret that she'll never know her father.
"Bones, you have to consider the idea that she might be better off with me, at least for a little while…"
"I can't, Booth, I can't give her up." She's grown, and she's evolved so much, but even if she finally did let him in there are some things that she still can't and won't change for him.
"Neither can I!" he snaps. "I'm her father, Bones! She's half mine and if you take her away again – I could have you arrested and take full custody of her." The words strike cold fear into her heart, and she feels herself going numb and freezing over. He's threatening to take her daughter away and her maternal instincts are kicking into over drive.
Booth sighs, rubbing his forehead as if the five years in between are suddenly catching up with him. "I'm sorry, Bones, I didn't mean that. Can't we just sit for a minute and talk about this?"
He gets to his feet so suddenly that she whips out the stolen gun from behind her back and aims for his heart.
She's wrong. This is the last thing he ever expected from her. First she witnesses the widening of his eyes, then his heart breaking, and finally as their eyes meet she sees the crushing sadness, the anger, the fear, and the desperation. She thinks then that he might make a move to disarm her, but he stays still because he realizes finally that she's no longer the woman that he fell in love with. Almost five years on the run has turned her into someone unpredictable. Or perhaps she's merely reverted in to the woman she would have been if he hadn't come along. On the surface she's unbearably calm and cool, her voice monotone and flat without the barest hint of a waver as she explains.
"I'm going to leave this room and you're not going to follow me. You're going to get your things together, pay your bill, and leave this room ten minutes after me. Then you're going to get in your car and drive away from this place but do not try to follow me." She takes a breath, emotion filtering through for the first time. "Go home, Booth. It's no longer safe here."
Genuine concern flickers in his eyes for a moment.
"Bones, you can't out run him alone," he pleads with her one last time.
"I'm not alone," she reminds him.
His face hardens.
"You'll get her killed one of these days," he warns her.
"If you try to take her away from me, you'll get us both killed." The hand holding his gun starts to tremble. She's not sure how much longer she can take the gaze he's giving her. She knows it's scientifically impossible but Booth is burning a hole into her with his eyes. "Stay away from us, Booth."
She slowly backs out of the room, never breaking eye contact or letting go of his gun. As she reaches the door he makes one last desperate attempt to reach her.
"Bones, please don't do this! Think of Christine!"
"I am," she whispers.
Before the door slams shut between them she sees the flash of pure hatred that she'd been waiting for. He finally hates her.
She cries the whole way to the meeting place, wishing that he knew just how much she loved him. She loves him but that's the problem. She had to sacrifice one because she couldn't bear to lose them both.
Giving Booth up and taking Christine away was the last thing Pelant had expected, and Max had convinced her that it was the only reason why the three of them were still alive. As long as Booth stayed miserable, he would be safe from Pelant who was content to make him suffer in any way possible, and as long as she continued to out run him with Max, he'd never find her and her daughter.
So she keeps running from Pelant and away from Booth. Until one day, one of them finally caught up with her.
A/N: Don't kill me! There's more coming soon!